Environmentalists to present local city councils Tuesday with petitions against plastic bags

Environmental advocates plan to gather Tuesday in Tigard, Lake Oswego and Beaverton, and call for local bans on disposable plastic bags.

Organizers with Environment Oregon say they'll present petitions with hundreds of signatures that were gathered from these areas by going door to door.

Sarah Higginbotham, EO's state director, said she hopes to start a conversation with local city councils about the actions they can take to limit pollution. Plastic bags, she said, harm thousands of birds and marine animals every year, and recycling has proven to be costly and inefficient.

In 2011, Portland banned plastic bags at check stands of major grocers and certain big-box stores. Similar efforts at the state level have failed. Higginbotham said the fight is shifting its fight to the local level, and EO is now looking to affect change in cities with large populations.

If words won't do it, organizers also plan to show off a costume made of 500 plastic bags -- the number, they say, that the average American living in a city uses in a single year.